Introduction
In this current pandemic time in the start of 2020 where many people are falling victim to COVID-19, we want to raise awareness while educating ourselves on the potential health burdens that other diseases can bring to people. Specifically, we will narrow down our scope to people affected by cancer in Washington state. We will examine how the mortality rates by cancer differ by cause, county, gender, and more within the state of Washington.
Relationship Between Cancer and Mortality Rate
In order to measure the severity of different types of cancer, we can visualize the mortality rate of the top 10 cancers using a bar chart. Here, we analyze the relationship between the independent variable of type of cancer and the dependent variable of mortality rate. The mortality rate measures the number of deaths in a particular population, and is expressed here in units of death per 1,000 individuals per year. The origin of this data source, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) as referenced in our reference list at the end of this page, collected this data from 1980 - 2014. This bar chart represents the average of the recorded mortality rate of each case from this time period. We see that the highest mortality rate is close to 50 for tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer. The IHME has categorized these three types of cancer into one likely because the symptoms and effects are similar to one another. This group leads the mortality rate by cancer by a wide margin with most types of cancer having a mortality rate of between 5 and 20. The bar chart being left skewed suggests that most cancers do not have a mortality rate that drastically differs from one another apart from the lung cancer group.
Mean Mortality Rates of the top ten Cancers
We analyzed the mean mortality rates coming from the deadliest cancers. In this case, we compiled the means by using the data from 40 counties in Washington state. From this, we can tell that the overall range of the mortality rates has decreased when comparing the years 1980 and 2014. This decrease in range could be attributed to the fact that new technological advances in imaging, detection, and treatment has allowed for cancer to be detected and treated earlier, allowing for people to survive these cancers. We can see that mortality rates are decreasing for the following cancers: tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer, colon and rectum cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer. These cancers are the most commonly heard of ones, and because of interventions such as campaigns against smoking, a wider set of genetic tests, we can see a drastic decrease in the mortality rates. Other cancers such as pancreatic, leukemia, brain and nervous system, and esophageal remain steady. In some cases such as brain and nervous system cancer, if a tumor grows on an inoperable location, not much intervention could help the patient be cured of this cancer. Thus even with advancements, the mortality rate in these cases does not change significantly. This suggests that while certain types of cancers are seeing a decrease in mortality rates, others are seeing either steady mortality rates or increasing mortality rates.
Rates of Top 3 Cancers by Race/Ethnicity
With the existence of so many different types of cancers. We wanted to explore if an determining factor in cancer incidence could be linked to race/ethnicity. Therefore we decided to create a distribution graph that presents the top 3 rates of cancers by race/ethnicity. With Washington state having uneven racial demographics, we used a technique called, age adjustment which is used to show the rates that would exist if the population had the same distribution. Our results show a significant difference between different ethnic groups and we can make an hypothesis that this could be the cause of hereditary genetics. The data that was used to create this distribution was made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC).